


Expectations

by SilentWanderlust



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 08:23:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11505459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentWanderlust/pseuds/SilentWanderlust
Summary: You were primed from birth to rule. Hailing from a prosperous political family, your journey to power wasn't traditional. It was brutal. General Hux wasn't prepared to handle you and your expectations of him. What began as a calculated political relationship became something you never thought possible. Your unexpected feelings made you weak, but your weakness bred influence. And in the end, that's what really mattered.





	1. Tell Me, Senator

“When you’re Emperor,” You stretched languidly in bed, reaching through your fingers and toes. “What will come of me?” 

The cushy bed sank as you sat up on your elbows, eyeing him with the look he’d come to associate with you wanting something of him.

General Hux unfastened his coat with a contemplative look. The stress lines in his face were still prominent from the day. He’d yet to relax, even minimally.

Though the clock read two in the morning, the planets, stars, and innumerable galaxies outside stalled time. Sleep had been intermittent since relocating permanently to the ship, partly from  abandoning the sun and moons of your home planet. In the wilds of space, night and day bled together into a never ending purgatory.

While waiting for your answer, you admired the glistening stars drifting by the oversized window. You shivered imagining the boundless expanse before you.

“Tell me, Senator,” Hux placed his coat carefully in the closet before crawling towards you on the bed. He pushed himself into you, grabbing your hips, holding you in place. His fingers pressed into you possessively, forming light red indentations in your skin. “What have I yet to do to convince you I want only you at my side?”

You swallowed as his eyes trailed over your throat and shoulders. His muscles slowly relaxed as you ran your hands up and down his back, pushing hard against the rough knots that seemed to multiply by the day.

“Do you expect I beg?” His warm breath tickled at your neck from his harsh whisper in your ear. Hux pulled you up into him, kissing the delicate skin between your neck and ear. “Do you expect I kneel at your feet?”

“I expect your word,” You grabbed his neck to force his stare. His chilling blue eyes searched yours for any hint of manipulation. “That no matter what you become. You remember who I am when it’s just you and I.”

“And what good is my word,  _ Senator _ ?” Hux said. “When I will do and promise anything to get what I deserve.”

“You contradict yourself,  _ General _ ,” You ran a cold hand through his slicked hair, jostling it out of place. It toppled into his eyes and you smiled fondly at the softness it afforded his face. “How can your word mean everything and nothing?”

“Your politics are worthless in the bedroom,” Hux ran a hand under your head to tug at the soft hair at the nape of your neck.

“My politics  _ are _ in the bedroom, Armitage,” You continued displacing his hair to his great dismay. “How do you assume my family’s maintained strong political clout for generations?”

“Political acumen and limitless pockets,” Hux pulled you both into a sitting position and pushed your roaming hands from his hair. He tangled his fingers with yours to stop any further destruction of his hairstyle. “Why must you always downplay your political prowess?”

“Saying I fucked my way to the top is far more interesting,” You smirked, admiring his pouting lips. “Or, people underestimate you that way, giving you an astonishing advantage. You’d think after eleven consecutive generations people would stop underestimating the Y/L/Ns. But they don’t and it burns them every time.” Passion scorched your eyes imagining the illustrious Senate floor and your innate ability to wrap anybody around your finger.

Hux admired you with a careful sense of wonder. Biting your lip, he pulled you closer towards him, wrapping his hands around your waist, putting you in his lap. Your legs circled around his waist and you shoved your hands back in his hair, unperturbed by his attempts to protect it.

“And yet you’re still skeptical that I want you to rule by my side?” Hux shook his head as you pushed him back to sit on top of him.

His head lay at the foot of the oversized bed. You ran your hand slowly up his chest and rested it threateningly at his throat. Reveling in the dark scrutiny of his gaze, you strummed your fingers against his racing pulse.

You bent down to whisper against his lips, “Your word, Armitage.” You pushed slightly into his throat and he growled, flipping you over so that he was on top once more.

One hand held your wrists in place over the edge of the bed. The other pushed into your stomach.

“Y/N, I give you my word,” Hux slid you down so your head dangled off the bed. “That I want you, and only you, to rule at my side when I become Emperor.” It wasn’t more than a whisper but it engulfed the room with a dominance only he could muster from silence.

“Good,” You slipped your hands from his grasp and wrapped them around his neck. In an attempt to save you both from slipping from the bed, Hux pulled you in closer to him. You watched him watch you and pursed your lips willing him to inquire further into the mischief in your eyes.

“There’s something else,” Hux creased his brows and pulled back for a better look at your face. He lingered on his forearms over you. “Tell me.”

“How will I be your Empress if I’m stuck in your bedroom?”

The room chilled rapidly with the tension wrapping between you. It felt like the deepest recesses of space were pulling you into the darkness. Something about asking one of the most powerful men in the galaxy something so consequential sent a shiver down your spine. And seeing him consider it made you feel weak in the knees, even lying down. 

“You expect I marry you,” Hux stated plainly, betraying none of his previous emotion. “Before my coronation.”

“Yes,” You replied, bending your head to meet his drifting gaze. It fell somewhere far beyond the confines of your bedroom. Watching his mind work stilled your heart to an unnaturally slow thud. His arms were still wrapped around you but he soon loosened his grip, pulling away.

The icy room felt even more so without his warm body pressed against yours. Your lips flatlined and you set your face in an expertly disinterested stare. It was exactly the look you gave when you weren’t getting exactly what you wanted and thought you still could.

Reprocessed air lingered thick between you, like a haze forming over your figures, obscuring one another from view. While you were wholly present in the moment, Hux was not. He’d seeped deep into the recesses of his overburdened mind.

“I had no model for matrimony in my youth,” Hux’s eyes fluttered in thought, remembering something you could never fathom. “I don’t know how to be a husband. I know how to be a disciplinarian, a commander. Neither are appropriate in marriage.”

“No,” You agreed, still watching him carefully. The only sign of life in him was the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest. “And even less so with children.”

“Children?” Hux practically stuttered, his voice uncharacteristically hoarse. He finally looked to you with an unbridled shock that stalled your breath.

“I’ve never seen a successful Emperor without an heir,” You smiled gently, hoping to lighten the sickening tension. “They’re quite useful. Unless they run you through too soon, of course.”

Hux pursed his lips and you accepted it as a partial smile.

“I’m not asking you respond now,” You said, swallowing the lump forming in your throat.

“No.”

“No?” You mouth fell open and you pulled into yourself. You stumbled back off the bed, wrapping your arms around you middle as you turned away from him.

“No,” Hux repeated. “I mean, you’re owed a response now.”

He padded across the floor and wrapped his arms around your waist. Resting his chin on your shoulder, he breathed deeply, settling the pain in his chest.

“I am completely incompetent regarding interpersonal, intimate relationships.” He breathed heavy against you and softly nuzzled his head into your neck. The warmth from his touch returned and you covered his hands with your own, hoping to quell the light quake at your fingertips. “If you desire the misery that surrounds me, then I would like you there.”

“Oh yes,” You spun in his arms and circled your arms around his neck. Your fingers dug lightly into the skin at the base of his hair.  “The strenuous life of Emperor Armitage Hux, shrouded in misery and hardship.”

You smirked up at him and flicked his earlobe. He shook the shock away from your playful gesture with a small smile. Dragging both hands over your back and down to your thighs, Hux maneuvered your legs up to wrap around his waist.

He walked you back towards the wall beside the bed. Cool metal stung your skin as Hux pushed you into the wall with vigor.

When he finally kissed you it felt like molten lava rushing through your frostbitten veins. As if he’d restarted your failing heart moments before collapse. Using his body weight to hold you against the wall, he dragged his hands leisurely up your sides until they landed near your neck. Hux fiddled awkwardly with the fabric of your sleep shirt, tugging the sleeves from your shoulders.

He growled at the unfavorable angle and rectified the situation by carrying you to the bed. The springy mattress bounced back as you fell but sank quickly from the weight of Hux suddenly on top of you.

You were afforded no time to think. His lips were again on yours with an unhinged insistence that constricted your chest, obliterating your ability to breathe.

It was a blissful Hell in his arms. There was little light left in his soul. But such deficits lingered heavy in yours too. If this brilliant torture was Hell, you yearned to drown in its depths and asphyxiate in its grasp; One constricted breath at a time.


	2. The Game

One Year Earlier:

“Y/N,” Your father barked from his study. The hallowed halls of Sellorun had been in the Y/L/N family for innumerable generations. Hundreds and thousands, if your half-senile hand maid was to be believed.

The property was vast, expensive, and effectually isolating. If it wasn’t your father yelling, it was the ghosts of relatives past whispering dark things in dark places. Though the appeal of the ghosts increased as occupancy dropped.

“Father,” You gave a deep bow. You hair tumbled down over your shoulders and you flipped it out of your face with a lick of grace. You noted never to bow with your hair down again. Perhaps a nod was more appropriate in such situations.

“I’m an old man,” He began, sucking on a cigar, disobeying the doctor's insistence he quit the ghastly habit. The stale, onyx smoke sank deep in his pores and even deeper into his heart as the years past. Now, embedded in him, it traced him everywhere he went.

“Age is relative,” You quipped, dropping into the stiff chair before his desk. You knew it was a ploy. Everything in the room was expertly structured to make anybody but himself uncomfortable. Rough chairs, dark colors, and an unnecessarily large desk for a truly gluttonous man.

Fitting.

“You flattery isn’t appreciated today.” He tangled his fingers together and leaned into the desk. “We’ve got a serious matter to discuss.”

You rolled your shoulders back and flicked your chin in the air. Pursing your lips, you demurely motioned for him to continue. Nobody was ever to see your fear.

“Like I said,” He flicked the ash from the cigar into an ashtray at the side of his desk. Particles missed their mark and tumbled onto the aging rug below. “I’m an old man, Y/N. Your brother’s dead and your sister’s refused any role in the family after marrying that - that - man.”

“Alin Faelark,” You corrected, crossing your legs. “The Resistance fighter.”

“Don’t speak his name in my house,” You father coughed and shook the phlegm from his throat. Your nose twitched with disgust but you pulled yourself together. “The galaxy is changing and our family line is in peril. I’m sure you’ve noticed a serious lack of heirs.”

“Yes,” A smirk played at your lips. “I believe I’d know if I’d birthed a child.”

“Quit the snark and _listen_ , Y/N,” You leaned back an inch in your chair, jarred by the sudden change of tone. He spoke his words with an uncomfortable lilt and there was an acute fear gleaming in his eyes. You father was scared. “You are far beyond the age we should have begun considering marriage. Your political career got in the way. But it’s time to refocus. The First Order is gaining influence. I’ve not kept this family alive on incorrect hunches and my gut knows this fucked up galaxy will bow to them before I die.”

“Who is it?” A shocking chill ran down your spine, your skin twitching as it went. “I don’t need the theatrics. Tell me the man. I want to know I’ll be content.”

“Content?” Your father barked a laugh that devolved into hacking coughs. “I will not sacrifice the continuation of our political dynasty for such follies as _contentment_.”

You swallowed and felt the pain behind your eyes that indicated incoming tears. You would not cry before the father that sold you away like a common whore. Everything you’d done, everything you’d accomplished, none of it mattered in the eyes of your father. All he cared for was his family name.

You yearned to rip the cigar from his hand and lodge it down his throat. Let him choke on the stick instead of the smoke. There wasn’t much difference in your opinion. But you couldn’t do a thing until you knew the man.

“The name, Father,” Your lips burned as you bit down inside your mouth, scowling like your father was dirt. “Give me the damn name.”

You father made no comment on your crude language. Clearly it made no difference to him. He placed the cigar against the ashtray and wiped his hands on his pants. The smoke swirled between him and yourself, obscuring him behind a milky shadow. He dug through a drawer in his desk and pulled a file triumphantly. It was an inch thick with pages and notes falling from the sides. At least your father was thorough.

He pushed the file your way. You dragged it towards yourself with shaking hands and looked down at the naming tab. You raised an eyebrow, recognizing the name immediately.

“General Armitage Hux of the First Order,” You tasted the words on your lips, knowing you’d be saying them in a million different ways over the coming years. You flipped through the notes detailing everything you father and his rats could compile on the man; Medical history, family lines, and military accomplishments. Every fact about the man’s life was between the manila flaps of the folder but you noticed something essential was conveniently missing. Nothing told you who he was as a person. But as a General of an intergalactic army, you had a hunch. What could you say? They ran in the family.

You closed the file and looked up at your father with a wild look in your eye. “When do we begin?”

You father smirked and popped the cigar back in his mouth. “Immediately.”

\---

The sun had long set and night had taken the sky. You were enthralled by the information before you and had only noticed the night when the room had gone pitch black.

You’d pulled the curtains over the windows and lit enough candles to set the house ablaze if you were so inclined.

You laid back on a pile of pillows on your bed, reading everything your father had given you. It was what you’d done when you’d first begun your political career. Pouring through over sized files of every influential person you could get your hands on. Tonight’s reading sparked a flame in your soul you had long since forgotten. The thrill of the chase would soon begin again and this would be your most influential prey to date.

You’d looked for hours. Nothing but text on paper. Your father didn’t trust anything that could be intercepted and kept most important things in print.

You pulled up the next slip of paper and your already ragged breath caught deep in your chest. It was a photo of a young man in uniform. However you’d pictured Hux, this wasn’t it. His features were gaunt but striking and there was a burning passion in his eyes that drew you to him. But most striking of all was his fiery hair dancing in the candlelight.

Hux was a form of stunning that brewed both terror and intrigue. Your picture of him seemed to fall into place. You knew he was thirty two, not much older than yourself, yet you’d imaged him a decrepit old man with a diminishing hairline. How wrong you’d been.

You held up the photo and moved your head to examine it further. His eyes followed your every movement. Or more logically, the candles cast unfavorable shadows only exacerbated by your sleep deprived eyes.

\---

“A Senator?” Kylo Ren said skeptically from behind his voice-altering mask.

“Yes, Ren,” Hux ripped your file from Kylo’s hand and placed it carefully on his desk before turning back to him. “I have now explained four times. Are you incapable of information retention? Shall I write it on your mirror so you see it while doing your hair each morning?”

Ren scoffed which came out as a grizzly, static sound. “Does Leader Snoke know you’re fooling around with a Resistance-sympathizing political pawn?”

The air of superiority in his crackling voice drove Hux to the edge of control as Ren often did. He took a quick, frustrated breath and cocked his head at Ren. The man was insufferable and wholly unfit to hold the rank he occupied.

“Leader Snoke,” Hux mocked Ren’s tone with an obnoxious shake of his head. “Deemed this endeavor worthwhile. I don’t anticipate your understanding. I unfortunately have no time to explain it thrice before it sinks into your thick skull.”

“I’m warning you, Hux,” Ren stepped up towards him until they were eye-to-mask. “If that waste of space Senator does anything to compromise our plans, I’ll kill her and then you.”

“Your egotism astounds me,” Hux blinked, growing bored with the conversation. “Let’s craft a deal since you are so keen on entrapping me and running to Leader Snoke. I would like to make it interesting.”

“This better not be like last time,” Ren pointed a finger in Hux’s face who jerked his head back in disgust. “I won’t play a game where I lose either way.”

“And yet you played,” Hux feigned confusion and turned to grab the file he’d been reading on you before being so rudely interrupted by the leather-clad man-child. He pulled the top page from between the flaps and shoved it at Ren. “If this girl betrays us, I will give you the honor of killing her in my place.”

“And if she isn’t?”

“Isn’t what, Ren?” Hux ripped the page from his hands before Kylo had an opportunity to look. He placed it carefully back in place in the file, ensuring no valuable information on you was misplaced. “I find your communication skills sorely lacking.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Ren crossed his arms in defiance. “If the girl doesn’t turn into exactly what I know she is, what do you get?”

“That is hardly your concern,” Hux offered his most patronizing smile and sat down at his desk. “I will tell you when I win.”

“That’s not how this works,” Ren slammed his hand onto the desk, making the wood shake under his fingers. Hux raised an eyebrow, far too accustomed to Ren’s immature outbursts.

“I created the game,” Hux casually flipped open the folder on you. “So if I interpret it correctly, I make the rules.”

“Fine,” Ren was in such a mood he agreed with little argument.

Hux looked up expectantly, motioning for Ren to exit. With a final shove of a precarious pile of papers, Ren left Hux in peace.

Hux carefully rummaged through the file pages to find the only picture he’d been given of you. Your hair toppled over your shoulders as you laughed uproariously at some joke he wasn't privy to. Clearly this would require a certain amount of acting if this picture was any indication of the type of person you were. Wild and unrestrained was diametrically opposite of everything he valued. Luckily, he knew what to do with wild and restrained. No matter what, break it.


End file.
